Russia has approved amendments to the state program of
agricultural development for 2013 – 2020 which cuts agricultural support from
215 billion roubles this year to 194 billion roubles by 2020.
At the same time the programme sets the plan to increase
grain production from 104mmt this year increasing to 110mmt in 2020 and milk to
go from 31.1mmt to 31.9mmt.
That’s an increase of 6% and 3% respectively which looks
like a number an accountant would come up with to help balance the budget.
The state program also includes rules for granting and
allocating subsidies from the federal budget to the regions and will target the following areas:
- Provision of decoupled support to crop production;
- increase productivity in dairy cattle;
- contribute to the achievement of targets of regional programs for the development of agro-industrial complex;
- reimbursement of interest on investment loans in the agricultural sector;
- reimbursement of the direct costs incurred for the creation and modernization of agro-industrial complex, as well as the purchase of machinery and equipment;
- reimbursement of the cost of interest on loans obtained from Russian credit institutions and loans received in agricultural credit consumer cooperatives.